Geely hits pig and survives

The tiny Geely took the impact far better than expected. A warthog may not look that big but it is a compact heavy animals and a collision, even at low speed usually leads to substantially more damage than the Geely got.

Natalie Swallow, safely back in Cape Town after her ordeal with the hog. She was speedily assisted by Geely in Windhoek to repair her car and continue the homeward trip.

A Cape Town couple on an overland safari to Namibia tackled roads and conditions that are regarded suitable only for offroad vehicles. They did this in a small Geely LC 1.3. The car also struck a warthog and both it and its occupants survived the ordeal. The Geely was actually driven away from the scene of the collision.Natalie Swallow and her boyfriend Trevor Little were over the moon after their holiday trip to Namibia, even though there was this little altercation between their little Geely and the warthogAll ended well for the Geely, but not for the pig.“Shame, the poor animal became road kill,” explained Natalie, who was a bit surprised when she was asked by a passing truck driver if he could have the dead warthog that nearly cost them their holiday.Natalie and Trevor have been planning their December holiday to Namibia for quite some time. “I have family all over Namibia, and we wanted to go for a visit,” said the 50-year old travelling mother and grandmother. “Everyone was sceptical about the car, saying we would be stuck if something happened in the middle of nowhere,” she said, adding they were travelling at a constant 120 km/h (sometimes the speedometer showed 130!) and once “much faster along an open road to see what the car can do”. The incident with the warthog came in the first week of 2013 after Natalie had joined her brother in Otjiwarongo. They travelled on good roads and visited Tsumeb, Swakopmund and Walfish Bay before returning towards Windhoek, when disaster struck at daybreak, shortly after they left Swakopmund on their way back to Cape Town via Windhoek. “A whole family of warthog ran across the road. We swerved and missed one, but then hit another..”The car was seriously damaged. A warthog weighs in at anything from 50 to 80 kg, and this was a fully grown male at the top end of the scale. Apart from the kind of body damage to be expected, the right front wheel was out of line. “We made it to Okahandja where the wheel alignment was reset, and then to Windhoek. I could hear people saying ‘I told you so’, but we were in for a treat.”Arriving at the dealership in Windhoek, the staff were quick to help by supplying replacement parts to get the car safely back on the road. “They replaced the bent steering arm and made some emergency repairs to the damaged body parts so we could drive back to Cape Town,” said Natalie.Once back home the proud Geely owner could boast they had conquered parts of Southern Africa that most people would only attempt in a 4×4. And although they did hit a snag in the form of a warthog, the Geely dealership “out in the sticks” was there and ready to assist.“It only took an hour or two before we were back on the road,” said Natalie. “I still feel bad about the poor warthog, but I’m very happy with the car – and the support we got from Geely via the Namibian dealer.”